Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association, a conservative Christian group, said that Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.) was "absolutely right" to claim that women cannot become pregnant from "legitimate rape."

The host of the talk radio show Focal Point said that the trauma from a “real, genuine rape, a case of forcible rape” would make it "difficult" for a woman to conceive a child, Right Wing Watch notes.

"There's a very delicate and complex mix of hormones that take place -- that are released -- in a woman's body, and if that gets interfered with, it may make it impossible for her or difficult in that particular circumstance to conceive a child," Fischer said during his show Monday.

"That's all Todd Akin is saying...and he's absolutely right about that," he continued.

Akin came under fire this week after he attempted to justify his extreme anti-abortion stance by arguing that "legitimate rape" does not causing pregnancy.

"From what I understand from doctors, that's really rare," Akin said in an interview with KTVI-TV on Sunday. "If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down. But let's assume maybe that didn't work or something. I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be on the rapist."

According to the New York Times, this is not the first time that this line of reasoning has been used by anti-abortion advocates.

However, leading experts on reproductive health have dismissed this logic as unfounded.

“There are no words for this -- it is just nuts,” said Dr. Michael Greene, a professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive biology at Harvard Medical School.

Dr. David Grimes, a clinical professor in obstetrics and gynecology at the University of North Carolina, told the New York Times that “to suggest that there’s some biological reason why women couldn’t get pregnant during a rape is absurd.”

wouldn't it be nice if a woman couldn't get pregnant from rape? but, as nice as it would be it doesn't make it so, no matter how many times it's repeated.

but are these people saying that if you don't rough her up some, it isn't rape, basically? like if you only threaten violence, say, rather than using it, that isn't genuine rape; that's gentalman's rape.

The anti-abortion movement as a whole? Not so much. See, this basically does two things:

(1) It creates a perfect Catch-22 situation whereby a woman who conceives after sexual assault doesn't qualify for an abortion precisely because she was impregnated, therefore it wasn't a legitimate rape.

(2) This will fob off the people who oppose most abortions but still demand exceptions for rape or incest. If this can be written into law--and they WILL try--then they can bring those people into the fold. The exceptions exist, but no woman will ever qualify for them. Ergo, no legal abortions ever.

"Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association, a conservative Christian group, said that Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.) was "absolutely right" to claim that women cannot become pregnant from "legitimate rape."

Proof that inferior subhumans of a feather, slime together.

Now, I'm as anti-death sentence as the next left-winger (just ask the Birmingham Six). But if Bryan Fischite was tied to a stake, with a table before me, on such was an array of blunderbusses loaded with Bryan's own shite; then afterwards, I was to be handed a flamethrower, just give me just one good fucking reason why I shouldn't use them on this subhuman oxygen-wasting, inferior waste of DNA rape apologist?!

In fact, if there are possibilities to get pregnant, there are roughly the same, if not more, when a woman is raped. Think about it, since it´s not consensual, I don´t think that either the rapist is going to take a condom or the woman is going to take any contraconceptive. Logic.

One of the main problems with rape is that it provokes a serious plothole regarding the internal logic of the patriarchal mindset. Let´s asume that, from the point of view of biology, the consequences of a woman having sex with many men are not the same with a man since she can get pregnant. Well, with rape, it´s blown away. Unless the woman is not already sexually active, most probably, if she gets pregnant, the children is the rapist´s(int he former, there is the doubt of the baby being her partner´s )but, at the same time, she´s blameless, so the one to be punished in his entirety is the man, not the woman, with very unfortunate implications, and let´s not forget that most rapists can´t support finantially the children they have conceived. So, yes, it creates a very uncomfortable climate for conservatives because they can´t use the arguments on the, say, "visible" side(i.e, the woman who gets pregnant)of the type "you should have closed your legs" and, simultaneously, they have to make concesions to their, apparently, magically well ordered and schematic mindset to make it work which, they recognise, it may lead to slippery slope(either accepting wellfare, adoption or even abortion for those cases or accepting that maybe is not that drama, after all, being a single mother). In any case, they feel, it may lead to opening a can of worms. And that´s why, defying all laws of biology, these guys concocted this stupidity, which contradicts, by the way, the reason behind the horrible laws in the Deuteronomy regarding rape.

@John,
In fact, I think that his statement is closely related. The reason why people think that "it doesn´t happen the first time" has double connotation as in here. First, the actual difficulty of conception. Women only ovulate for a limited period of time.Even if granted that spermatozoa can survive up to 3 days or even a week once inside the woman´s body, well, still you have like three weeks or so to not conceive, let alone that the woman´s antibodies will attack either the spermatozoa or even the foetus either before or after it is implanted in the form of miscarriage. So, it´s easy to asume that you, in general, need more than one sexual contact to make sure that you get pregnant, which is where the myth of the first time and the bullshit this guy said comes from. So, yes, conception in general is difficult but, well, pregnancies are there and the possibility of getting pregnant even in those circumstances ARE real.
The second has more to do with wishful thinking. The first time and rape are situation where pregnancy is not desired and people want to believe that there is some magical, even metaphisical possibility to avoid the worst scenario. That´s why he said that stupid "legitimate" chunk, which carries so many unfortunate implications and he refuses to explain and clarify.